OUT WITH THE OLD

I am still amazed that ten years after I converted to Electric Propulsion I still find items from BIANKA's diesel days around. The latest items were some MDR Diesel Water Zorb and a bottle of Valvtech Bio Guard. A reminder of just two of the ancillary items I use to carry on the boat to keep the old diesel engine running and are no longer needed once I converted BIANKA to electric propulsion.

What to do with these and other items I no longer have a need for on board BIANKA. I don't like to see anything end up in a landfill. The answer for me it is to donate them to a local nonprofit sailing organization. Their boat still has a diesel engine and can use these fuel tank additives. I previously donated an old Honda 650 generator to them and recently found the manual for it. I also donated a lightly used Brownies Third Lung Dive Hose Kit and a Add A Diver Kit . I only used the Hose Kit  a few times to clean the bottom of the boat. Because it required having a scuba tank on board that was heavy, took up space and needed to be refilled it was not as useful as I thought it would be. These items were on the boat and then sitting around the house for a decade or more. So with the coming of a new year it got me motivated  to finally get them out of the way. The end of the year is a good time for "out with the old and in with the new" type of thinking.

IN THE TANK: Part 2, Steaming Ahead!

After an initial wipe down of the tar and sand that accumulated on the bottom of the fuel tank some more Simple Green and some steam did a real nice job in cleaning the tank. I've mentioned that the Scunci Steamer comes in useful in many areas on board. But, to be useful in helping to clean places like the fuel tank you need to have the extension hose as shown below for the Scunzi:

The Scunci Steamer  with the extension allows you to get into most areas of the tank with the steam that helps really get the tank clean. Spraying the tank with full strength Simple Green followed by steam and a quick wipe down with a shop towel makes cleaning the tank very easy. Below is a before photo of one corner of the tank:

Here is the same area after the Simple Green, steam and a wipe. You can clearly see the difference between the area that was wiped after the steam was applied.

The tank comes out pretty clean after this procedure but, the final thing I will do is put some water in the tank along with some DAWN dish washing detergent and go sailing. Letting the DAWN and water mixture slosh around for a bit. It seems scientist have discovered that DAWN dish washing detergent seems to be most effective in removing oil from birds caught up in oil spills. If it works on the birds why not try it on the last remnants of diesel remaining in the on board fuel tank on BIANKA.

BLOG UPDATE:  The Scunci Steamer started to leak steam from the handle after about a year of use. So I purchased another brand as a replacement. Which seems to be holding up better. You can see the post about the new steamer by clicking here

TO VIEW IN THE TANK PART 1 CLICK HERE!

IN THE TANK: Part One, Scene of the grime!

 
If you've got a diesel engine on your boat you've probably got a fuel tank somewhere. It's probably tucked away in some out of the way place on your boat. If your are lucky you have an inspection port already installed. But, many if not most production boats do not. Why? Because it cost extra money and time for the builders to install it. But, if I were buying a new boat or even just buying a new fuel tank I would have one installed knowing what I know now. Follow Capt. Mike as he goes into the tank and you'll see why.

I stopped using and carrying diesel fuel on BIANKA three years ago. I drained the fuel tank as part of the conversion to electric propulsion. My ASMO MARINE electric propulsion system has no need of diesel fuel so the tank has been  empty since the spring of 2008. This year I decided to start converting the empty unused diesel fuel tank on board into a fresh water rinse tank so that I could use the water to clean and rinse down the cockpit on extended days at anchor. That is if I can get it cleaned out enough.

Fuel tanks look like they have to meet some particular standards by the authorities if the label on BIANKA's is any indication:

For good reasons. The authorities really would rather not deal with too many boat fires and explosions. Rescues on the water are hard enough with boats that are not on fire or scattered into a thousand pieces all over the harbor. So these standards are a good thing.
The first step in the conversion process on BIANKA was to use an inspection camera to see if the tank had a baffle installed. This was important to know because I wanted to have an inspection port on the converted tank to inspect and be able to clean the inside of the tank easily. If there was a baffle in the tank it would limit my choices of where to install the inspection port. Happily,  there was no baffle so that meant I could install the port where ever I wanted. I choose to place it roughly in the center of the tank. Since I would not be using the old diesel fuel sender anymore either I made sure that the hole cut for the inspection port would encompass the cutout for the defunct fuel sender port too. CAPT. MIKE NOTE: I will be posting about installing the inspection port in a later post. You can see the location I chose in the photo below:

After cutting the hole I was able to get a better look and more importantly better access to the inside of the tank. What I found was not pretty. The fuel tank on BIANKA is the original fuel tank built in May of 1986. I had always used a biocide since I purchased the boat in 1995 in order to keep the conditions inside the tank so the organisms that can grow in the tank would not become a filter clogging issue. Likewise I always changed the primary and secondary fuel filters every 50 hours or once a season which ever came first. So I was surprised to see when I opened up the tank how coated the bottom of the tank was:

It is kind of hard to tell  in this photo but, this is one of the upper corners of the tank which slopes downward. The whole bottom of the tank was covered with this grime. The white specks are particles of sand that entered the tank over the twenty two years the tank was in use. This is the stuff that you hear about that gets stirred up in rough seas causing fuel filters to clog and the engines to stop just when you might need them most. The entire bottom of the tank was coated with this grime. The sides however looked relatively clean as you can see below:

 Below is a photo of where I used my glove to smear the grime a little:

Remember this is three years after the tank was drained of diesel. It's sticking pretty good but, can be wiped off pretty easily, IF you have access to the tank. Which I now do thanks to the hole for the inspection port I cut. Below is a photo of the lower forward corner of the fuel tank. You can see the fuel pickup tube quite easily and the little bit of sludge that the tube failed to pick up when I drained the tank as well as the grime coating the bottom of the tank in the foreground:

This grime surprise greeted me and I'm sure many others if only they could see what has accumulated in their boats fuel tanks over the years. Happily, for me once this is cleaned up I won't have to worry about it again thanks to my electric propulsion system.

Where to start? I decided that the best course of action is to try and use some heavy duty paper towels to try and clean as much of this grime as possible first. So I bought a box of Scott Rags in a Box for this phase. I like use the Rags in a Box because it is easier to pull a clean towel out of the box with dirty gloved hands than deal with a loose roll of paper towels. So I started to scrub the bottom of the tank with the paper towels and made some good progress. I then found the saturating the towels with some full strength Simple Green cleanser helped things move along much faster. You can see the difference between in the photo below:

Having cut the eight inch access port really helped in cleaning this stuff up. Though even with the eight inch hole there was still one corner that was just barely out of reach:

But, I think  if I just use a small brush as an extension even this area can be cleaned up easily. Below is a photo of the fuel pickup area. You can compare it with an earlier view two photos above

Well not bad for the first pass. But, it is still a Dirty Job as you can see here from the paper towels I'm holding:

I'll post more about cleaning out the fuel tank as the project progresses.

TO VIEW THE "IN THE TANK:Part Two Click Here

Going Electric Part 5: Another milestone!

Well vacation is over so it's time to get back to work on the blog and the electrification of Bianka.

At this point I've removed the engine and the useless engine driven refrigeration components. But, I still need to remove the refrigeration piping that ran from the port side amidships all the way to the aft starboard side where the compressor and other components were located. Someone spent some time and money installing this system.

As much as I hated to remove it. It looks like some expensive tubing as show here (white hose) it is copper tubing surrounded by insulation and a durable outer cover. I had no plans to replace the refrigeration system. But, as long as I have easy access to it's location this is time to remove it. Actually, I may use it for a solar energy heating project in my home so it won't be just thrown out. But, what's that yellow canister on the right side of the photo?

Why it's the Racor fuel filter! This certainly will have no use on board once I install electric propulsion. Since I have already drained the fuel tank the photo shows me about to start draining the last few ounces of diesel on board. I consider that another milestone!

PREVIOUS GOING ELECTRIC POST
NEXT GOING ELECTRIC POST

REMOVING DIESEL FROM THE FUEL TANK

Since I will be putting in a new propulsion system and will no longer need to use diesel fuel. I needed to remove the remaining fuel in the on board tank. But, how to remove the fuel? I looked around the boat and found my Topsider Oil Changer. I usually used it to change the oil in the engine. It works by a vacuum principle. In order to make it work in removing the fuel I would need to use an adapter. The photo below shows the fuel tanks normal configuration.


This shows the fuel line connected to the fuel shut off valve. First I remove the fuel line and shutoff valve. I next screw in an adapter to which I attached the hose that goes to the Topsider container as shown in the photo below:

Another advantage of using the Topsider to empty the fuel tank is the clear hose allows you to check the condition the fuel as it is removed from the fuel tank. Once you have connected the Topsider hose it is just matter pumping the fuel into the Topsider container .

It holds about two gallons so you may need to transfer to another container a few times to empty the fuel tank. But, it is relatively easy and clean way to empty the tank. Unfortunately, my tank was 3/4 full so I had to pump out about twenty gallons. But, the good news is I gave it to a lobster man who was working on his boat. With diesel fuel prices at $3.50 a gallon he really appreciated it. Plus I did not have to lug the fuel it to a recycling center. I am also hoping that he might drop off a lobster or two this summer when I am on board. I call that a win win situation.